I live in Mexico. I have access to the internet, of course, but not the other options. I need to download books off the internet to use in a Nook if I were to buy one. Not having the ability to do that, conveniently, means I won't be buying a Nook.

Btw, apparently wi-fi will only be available at B&N stores initially, but the hope is later they will open it up for use everywhere, this was reported on Gizmodo.

Not so according to this which was posted in another thread:

Quote:

Matthew Miller, over at ZDNet, has cleared up some confusion about the Nook's WiFi capabilities:

"I posted yesterday about the Barnes & Noble Nook and then read Mitch Ratcliffe’s post where he primarily focused on the apparent limited use of WiFi. I just posed a couple of questions on the Nook press call and have to now tell Mitch he is wrong about the WiFi access, but he should actually be quite pleased since there are no limits. I confirmed that you can access and purchase books via both WiFi and AT&T 3G from any place where you have access to a network, including your home WiFi network. The Barnes & Noble store experience is just an enhanced experience that presents you with free content and also allows you to browse through books, just like you can physically in the bookstore."

B&N is pretty serious about regional restrictions. I just tried to buy a few ebooks from B&N using a US card from overseas...didn't work. Although I could make the purchase, it would not let me download and then immediately canceled the order. So my guess is that they record your IP address at the time you click order.

They do indeed check the IP-address.
As I am interested in this reader I also tried the to buy a book.
First I tried the Fictionwise workaround. Using an USA address with my Dutch credit card. Indeed your order is canceled almost immediately.

Then I tried the same again, but this time I used my USA VPN account from www.alwaysvpn.com (just $8,50 for 5GB data). That way Barnes and Noble sees an USA IP-address.
Now I was able to buy and download the book without a problem!

I am interested in this reader, because I would be able to read books from Fictionwise, Barnes and Noble and from other ePub bookstores. I also like the colourscreen and WIFI. And best of all, even with shipping to the Netherlands, 19% VAT and import duty, it would still be a bit cheaper than the Sony 600 (Nook about E 265,00, Sony 600 E 300,00).

I wonder about the support of only English books. Is this just about the characterset that is supported? That would probably not be a problem for Dutch books. Or do they really check the language of the book (is that even possible)?

I have been looking around for quite a while trying to decide what ereader to buy. I like the idea of the Nook but need to get it working in the UK. Does anyone know whether you could use a UK credit card to buy a gift voucher @B&N then buy books using that? I could get someone visiting the US to pick up the hardware for me.
Thanks.

I have been looking around for quite a while trying to decide what ereader to buy. I like the idea of the Nook but need to get it working in the UK. Does anyone know whether you could use a UK credit card to buy a gift voucher @B&N then buy books using that? I could get someone visiting the US to pick up the hardware for me.
Thanks.

Take a look at my post #22 in this thread about buying books at Barnes & Noble (of course there is no guarantee that these workarounds will keep on working). As you live in the UK you can also buy Epub books from UK stores like Waterstones en WH Smith.

For shipping you can use a free shipping address from www.borderlinx.com (I have used their service several times without a problem).
They also have a shipping calculator which calculates the total cost of shipping the product (including VAT and customs duty).

They do indeed check the IP-address.
As I am interested in this reader I also tried the to buy a book.
First I tried the Fictionwise workaround. Using an USA address with my Dutch credit card. Indeed your order is canceled almost immediately.

Then I tried the same again, but this time I used my USA VPN account from www.alwaysvpn.com (just $8,50 for 5GB data). That way Barnes and Noble sees an USA IP-address.
Now I was able to buy and download the book without a problem!

I wonder about the support of only English books. Is this just about the characterset that is supported? That would probably not be a problem for Dutch books. Or do they really check the language of the book (is that even possible)?

Hi, are you talking about hiding our non-US IP address? I went to surf for more info on changing my non-US IP address to a US IP address. One website I found was http://www.how-to-hide-ip.info/2008/...se-with-us-ip/ . With this method, I wonder how successful we are able to download ebooks from B&N outside US and transfer the downloaded ebooks on our PC to our Nook via usb? Anyone has any idea?

Another issue is, even if we manage to hide our IP add, are we still able to buy B&N ebooks with a non-US credit card?

BTW to answer your qn, I think it is possible to read Dutch books. The reader will support any language so long as its English alphabets.

Hi, are you talking about hiding our non-US IP address? I went to surf for more info on changing my non-US IP address to a US IP address. One website I found was http://www.how-to-hide-ip.info/2008/...se-with-us-ip/ . With this method, I wonder how successful we are able to download ebooks from B&N outside US and transfer the downloaded ebooks on our PC to our Nook via usb? Anyone has any idea?

Another issue is, even if we manage to hide our IP add, are we still able to buy B&N ebooks with a non-US credit card?

BTW to answer your qn, I think it is possible to read Dutch books. The reader will support any language so long as its English alphabets.

Indeed I was using the alwaysvpn to hide my IP-address. The reason I am using alwaysvpn is that I do not want to send my credit card details using a free proxy or free proxy website. I trust a paid service like alwaysvpn more.
And because you do not pay an expensive monthly subscription it is very cheap.

You can of course download the books to your PC and use USB to send them to the Nook. But I did not need to hide my IP-address to download the book from the B&N site. So you should be able to use the wifi connection to download the books directly to your reader (this is also mentioned in the Nook FAQ: you can use wifi abroad to download books you have already bought to your reader).

I used my Dutch Visa credit card to pay for the book. With an USA address as billing address (in this case my Borderlinx mail forwarding address, but any valid USA address should work). Just like Fictionwise B&N does not verify the billing address at the credit card company.

I like the fact that with this reader I can keep on buying books at Fictionwise (I am a buywise club member). And can also buy books at other stores that use ePub, like Dutch bol.com and the UK stores.

I am convinced there will always be ways to circumvent geographic restrictions at stores like Fictionwise and B&N. And even if that would no longer be possible, at least with the Nook you can use all ePub bookstores.

Hmm, vpn option sounds interesting. I'm a little hesitant to use it for secure connections (ssl, https) though. My last concern about buying from overseas is firmware, if they restricted firmware updates to the 3g service. But that seems unlikely.

I got this email from B&N after I made my order, pwned.

Only customers physically located in the U.S. are able to purchase
eBooks on the Barnes & Noble website at this time. Please accept our
sincere apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

As for the semi-official line from the admin at the B&N message boards:

We're still looking at international options, but do not have an international device at this time.
If you are a U.S. customer with nook, you can obviously read any content on your device whereever you are. Using Wi-Fi, you can also access and download any content in your digital locker. But you cannot buy new content while overseas.
We'll certainly post updates on the international question as the information changes.
Thanks again for the question.http://tinyurl.com/yhwxgk2

Does anyone know for Amazon, can we buy ebooks with a credit card that is not listed in any of the international countries on the Kindle 2 device? Do they check the credit card country source? Was thinking if this IP method will work on Amazon too.